October NPD Number Crunch: No Halloween treats for industry hit with 25 percent sales decline

October's gloomy festivities unfortunately were mirrored in the sales performance for the video games industry, which according to the NPD Group was hit with yet another month of year-on-year decline. The 25 percent dip in sales wasn't any worse than the sales decline the industry already suffered back in September, but October's figures were still disappointing considering last month's batch of anticipated titles like Dishonored, Resident Evil 6 and Pokémon Black/White Version 2.

To be sure, none of them faired badly at retail and in fact all managed to break into NPD's software top five for October quite easily, with NBA 2K13 securing the crown for bestselling title of the month. Despite a cold critical reception, Resident Evil 6 sold very well both in North America and in Japan during launch month. Dishonored fared better with reviewers, and proved to be the only non-sequel title to break into NPD's monthly top seller list. EA meanwhile was right to be more than a little disappointed over Medal of Honor: Warfighter's retail performance, but it was still a top ten title in NPD's books.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 continues to dominate monthly hardware sales, and the software/console giant boasts it is now commanding a handsome 56 percent share of the total market with its platform. The PS3, 3DS and DS platforms enjoyed minor victories of their own with unit sales higher than those for September 2012.

NPD is confident November's retail performance will look a lot brighter thanks to the launch of high profile titles like Assassin's Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II and of course, Halo 4. Oh, and the Wii U launch has to count for something! It remains to be seen what impact they will all have on November's numbers.

Is it me, or is it completely weird that NBA is over the Pokemon games? Where the release dates that far apart or is Pokemon going downhill?

I think its a combination of this being the "third version" for this generation of game and the fact that NPD breaks version into their own SKUs. Last I saw BW2 was selling in line with what Platinum did, which is the most similar comparison to draw.